Unlock a New ‘Annihilation’ Clip With a Secret Message on the Film’s Website

We love it when a studio simply hands us a new trailer, but you know what’s especially satisfying? When we have to work for that new footage, when we get to discover it on our own. Alex Garland’s Annihilation is allowing us to do just that, dropping breadcrumbs of clues on the film’s Twitter account to unlock new footage from the sci-fi film.

Adapted from Jeff VanderMeer's 2014 novel of the same name, the film follows five women venturing into a mysterious region known as Area X. If you’ve been keeping tabs on the movie's marketing, you may have noticed some interesting tweets. The official account has been releasing short snippets of footage and GIFs along with some weird phrases with the characters oddly spaced out. But those aren’t just to prep us for the film’s sinister vibes; some clever folks on Twitter realized that if you take one of those messages and pop it into a new website for the film, you’ll happen upon a discovery – a brand new clip from the film with Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

For those curious, head to forthosethatfollow.com and when prompted, copy and paste the text below, which is a quote from the book that, oddly enough, I wrote down while reading it because it was so fascinating and jarring!

When you see beauty in desolation, it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.

Then the site will take you to about 20 seconds of new footage. The video begins with a new scene between Portman’s biologist Lena looking rather perturbed as Leigh’s Dr. Ventress describes the expanding boundary around Area X, a region full of biological anomalies and mutations. Leigh described about as much in a behind-the-scenes featurette from last week, explaining something called The Shimmer, a phenomenon happening inside Area X. But in the clip we get to see a little more than before, and a brief glimpse at the lighthouse that is all-too-familiar to fans of the book.

The film follows Lena, Dr. Ventress, and three other women played by Tessa Thompson,Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny, as they venture into the mysterious landscape. Here’s the full synopsis:

Lena, a biologist and former soldier, joins a mission to uncover what happened to her husband inside Area X - a sinister and mysterious phenomenon that is expanding across the American coastline. Once inside, the expedition discovers a world of mutated landscape and creatures, as dangerous as it is beautiful, that threatens both their lives and their sanity.

The perplexing, ominous messages across the film’s Twitter account are a nice nod to VanderMeer’s book, which is the first of a trilogy. Keep your eyes on the account over the next several weeks to see if any more mysterious messages pop up to unlock new footage. Annihilation hits theaters February 23, and to keep you busy until then, just move your cursor around the website as the colorful reflections of The Shimmer twirl across the screen.